The Days

Kingsley was swept up in the enthusiasm of the camp. His untrained eye didn't appreciate the mysteries of the ruins, but an electric excitement coursed through him. Scholars and workmen raced around with wheelbarrows full of dirt, trying to pry anything of value from the ruins. The site was still being classified, so every Society had access to it, and each was desperately looking for artifacts relevant to their purview, so they might win a stake in recovering whatever mysterious works could be found in the deeper catacombs. Everybody knew that whatever strange people had populated the continent in the days before it was civilized had known things. Although Master Veldt determinedly denied the value of anything found in the ruins, every Society filled its circulars with articles outlining the usefulness of some artifact uncovered from the most recent dig.

In spite of his excitement, Kingsley found he had fairly little to do. In Kinsbourne he served as the Master's messenger and postal clerk, handling deliveries Veldt felt was too sensitive to trust to the royal post, and handled household tasks like running baths, helping the master shave, and coordinating his daily living so that the Master could devote as much of his time to working as possible. He had hand-delivered (and often written) apologies when the master wouldn't attend garden parties with local gentry, and more than one old maid suspected the old scholar was merely shy when Kingsley had tried to gently dissuade their advances. Here, though, there were no baths, no deliveries, and no garden parties. The Master had become taken with the mountain air and insisted on growing a beard. After Kingsley had spent the better part of their first two days arguing with the cooks that the Master be allowed to eat in his cabin, then Veldt had insisted on eating at the long table with the workers.

He settled quietly on the roof of the cabin.

Arrival

Kingsley jerked awake as the truck came to a crashing stop, one hand automatically snapping out to prevent a particularly homicidal crate from crushing his skull. Slowly, he peered from behind the fortress of crates. The Kark was nowhere to be seen, but there was a lingering odor of cigarettes. Outside there were shouting and activity. It sounded disappointingly like work. Kingsley eyed the canvas flap at the far end of the bed. If he hurried he could make it and be gone before anybody knew, have the Master's quarters set up, and be safely shielded from criticism for the rest of the day. The Master certainly didn't know that Kingsley could do his day's chores in an hour and spent the rest of the day his own man.

There was an unfamiliar sound, and suddenly the whole canvas seemed to evaporate. Mountains streamed into Kingsley's peripheral vision, and crowd of burly laborers descended on the truck, and suddenly it was skeletal. Kingsley watched helplessly as the crates he was supposed to be guarding bustled away under the arms of a mustachioed coolie. Very quietly, he shifted the carpet bag to the other hand, hopped gingerly over the side of the truck, and surveyed the camp.

It was arranged in large clearing which, from the sound of sawing and hammering, was somehow expanding and becoming more dense simultaneously. Lean-tos and shanties burst from the ground like stop-motion tree growth, the illusion perfected by the fact that some of the logs still had green leaves hanging from them. The societies had, in many cases, already arrived, and were already competing for space. The Barber's College had erected poles to define the edges of their territory; surgical interns from the Sawbones Fraternity swung livery over them if they thought nobody was looking. The Mortician Fellowship had erected a full size statue of Eb in repose, towering from the center of the camp. Members of societies could be seen arguing; an envoy of the Hierophant was shouting and waving a censer at a Nephromancer, although whether it was a threat or simply a gesture to keep off the scent of salpetre wasn't clear.

Lurking in the shadows of the mountain, high above, Kingsley could see the source of the whole squabble. Stairs crisscrossed the cliff face, and a few squat towers were visible over the edge. Kingsley sighed. "Depressing, isn't it?" Veldt clapped his hand on his valet's shoulder. "All these people, here to fight over the right to look at a few carvings and some pottery. Well? Don't just stand there, get a move on, man!"

They followed hastily applied livery through the middle of the camp, into a rather stately shack. It had columns. It was lavishly appointed inside, with a pair of gas lamps throwing a fashionable dim onto a short man sitting at the end of the table. "Mr. Veldt, glad you could make it; we're very excited to have you here. There are some tablets and tools in the ruins, you should see it! It guarantees that this facility should fall under the jurisdiction of we, the Fraternity of Sawbones. Saws! There's scalpels! Scalpels, sir. Wonderful devices, with evidence of ironworking! It's very exciting, I'm sure you know. We have arranged a wonderful bunk at the heart of our camp, as near to the road as the horrible ruffians would allow us. Your man can take your things, and I would be obliged if we could get this assay underway as soon as possible." There was a pause. "Oh, by the way, I am the Sitting Chair of the Fraternity, pleased to make your acquaintance."


Veldt paused, unsure of how to proceed. On the one hand, the Sitting Chair had remained seated, spoken quickly without exchanging the expected niceties and barely even introduced himself at all. The flowery language and gushing and exhaustive exchange of etiquette was abandoned in the shadow of the jagged mountains. It was a breathe of fresh air, meeting someone sharp enough to get to the point. On the other, this layabout had not been nearly as courteous as Veldt imagined he deserved, and he was too old to let some stuffed shirt busybody take his ease during introductions. Veldt knew he was a lot of things, and although gentleman was not one, he was also not some servant to be summoned and paid with money in place of money and courtesy. Kingsley watched beads of sweat form as his master performed unfamiliar social calculus, and surreptitiously cracked the door with his heel.

"You incorrigible little ingrate!" Veldt roared finally.
"Master, perhaps--" Kingsley began timidly.
"Not you, boy. Him! The ingrate! Summoning me from my important work at the University so he can stamp his name all over shiney baubles? The nerve of him!"
"Sir, I assure you I meant no disrespect, I'm bound by the rules of my order to stay sea--"
"You be quiet, society man. Kingsley, call the trucks back! We're returning the University immediately." Kingsley shrugged helplessly at the Sitting Chair as Veldt swept out of the shack, and scurried after his master.

"Sir, we spoke with the drivers on the way here, remember? They won't be leaving for nearly a week, at least."
"Bushwa! These mercenaries will drive us back for a ha'penny, I'm sure. Cutthroats!"
Kingsley glanced backwards nervously. The Sitting Chair was rapidly approaching, waving his arms from a sedan chair borne between two puffing students. A half-curious crowd was forming a human hallway, allowing the fuming Veldt to pass by and closing up behind the sedan.

Veldt froze suddenly, prompting Kingsley to nearly run into him. The puffing society men came to a stop with the Sitting Chair desperately trying to prostrate himself from chest level. Kingsley followed his master's gaze. A small dove had hopped onto the corner of a building. It tilted its head at him, then flew away. Veldt straightened.

"Kingsley, I had an epiphany. We're staying. Stuffed shirt, lead me to these saws. Kingsley, see to my things." He swept away, pushing through the crowd.

Kinsbourne had been a convenient find. Where the river had widened and slowed and the dense forests had curled back its vast maw on an open plain, there was room to a comfortable village. Over the gentle slopes on the north , something stranger was found to accommodate the burgeoning community. Where the fields that had made Kinsbourne such an inviting port surrendered to the trees, a strange structure parted the forest. A ramp of cement and metal, wide enough to let two dozen people stand shoulder to shoulder, lifted itself regally from the gentle hillocks and plunged away into darkness.

It made for a convenient entrance to the center of the continent, and its size and mysterious origins drew religious interest. Pilgrims traveled it, looking for the secret history of their giant deities. Explorers would travel its length until professional pride got the better of them, and then they'd descend the side roads into the forest and trailblaze. Broken-down steamer trucks became stations, and tiny homesteads hunkered under the buttresses. Nobody was quite sure how far the High Road went, although explorers claimed to have reached the far edge toppled into a crevasse at the foot of the mountains hundreds of miles on the interior.

For most people, the nearer forests held their own interests. At first furs and lumbers were the draw, and the Road made for extremely convenient trading. As the trees found themselves rising as Kinsbourne's Upper Walks, farmers moved into the places the lumberjacks had logged, and subsidiary roads provided paths deeper and deeper inland. That was when the ruins had start to turn up. It was well known that the continent had had previous inhabitants. Not one to look a gift continent in the millions of unmarked graves, settlers generally turned out pockets where they found them and got on with their lives. Out in the wilderness, however, the buildings became more numerous. They held curios, and geegaws, and the societies were vastly interested in every object they could find there. Homesteaders claimed there were great secrets hidden in the old compounds. The secret to everlasting life! The answers to the universe! The equation for a long lasting engine solvent that also serves as a beard wax!

Kingsley sat amidst trunks in the bed of a huge canvas-backed steamer truck. He'd been charged with guarding his master's possessions and had promptly realized the task was unnecessary, given as he was the only one in the truck bed and furthermore the possessions consisted of two carpet bags full of clothing Veldt had only brought along to appease the laundress, a few books, and a large crate too heavy to be stolen and too boring-looking to be worth it. So he'd settled in for his favorite pastime, watching. It had been exciting for the first few hours; he'd stared through a flap in the canvas as first the university station, then the gables and stalls of Kinsbourne, and finally the ramparts of the Upper Walk had slid sideways out of view. He'd even sat for a while entranced by the fields of corn and beans separated by ancient stone walls, with roughly-clothed folk tending plants, animals, and farming equipment visible from the sides of the High Road. Soon, though, huge trees towered overhead, an innumerable army of faceless sentries. Periodically a small village would shake free of the overgrowth, and the caravan would grind to a halt, unloading new settlers and enthusiastic pilgrims. Caravaneers hawked their wares to starry-eyed fungus farmers and the scholars would rifle through the curio stores of local ruins-raiders, but the periodic starts and stops had begun to set Kingsley's teeth on edge.

Kingsley wasn't especially surprised when the truck jolted to a stop and instantly his hand steadied a homicidal steamer trunk. A complaint rose in his throat but good manners stifled it and he swatted the canvas aside so he could peer at the goings on outside. A fat man in pink pajamas flopped off the back of the next truck, and scrambled away. Someone landed on his back, and wrenched him backwards. Men descended the squat truck rapidly, and finally, the two huffing contestants were glaring at each other through a prison of arm bars. Finally, the fat one was released, and his attacker was frogmarched away from the group. He wrenched away from the two men holding his wrists and casually hauled himself into Kingsley's truckbed. Kingsley peered timidly at the colossus. It struck a match and thunder corresponded, illuminating an angular face with thick-knit eyebrows and a neatly trimmed beard. Kingsley scowled as he settled on the floor and steadied the tipping steamer. A coolie with a beard, smoking a cigarette, getting in fights. Suddenly his security role had been expanded. As the cigarette flared to life, a gentle staccato of rain began its all-night percussion piece on the canvas.

Kingsley slid over a roof and coiled himself in the gathering speed. As he reached the edge of the roof, he leaped, landing with a smooth roll on the flat roof of the building. There was a start from the alley below, but traders were always too busy to pursue and he was hardly the only person dashing along the eaves. He cleared the low wall on the far side of the roof and landed on a newly-installed fire escape, jumped the edge and caught the railing on the opposite rail. He hauled himself up, and poked his head over the sparse roof behind. Carefully now he stole through the garden on his toes, backing carefully through the light foliage. A dog barked and sent Kingsley hurtling across the roof, over the flat top of a water tower, down a ladder on the far side. He picked up speed now, over the saw teeth of Mme Lei's laboratory, and with a final vault he catapulted himself to the ledge of the open window, crawled inside, and closed the window behind him. He sat for a moment on a beam under the high peaked roof. Gently, he dropped to the floor, and slumped on the rope bed in the corner.

"Mr. Singe! Where are you?" Master Veldt hurtled into the room like a thunderstorm. He was that boisterous type of academic, the sort who learned about the mating rituals of alligators by wrestling them, and held an extremely similar feeling for the hired help. He never rang for them and Kingsley suspected he whispered the orders so that he'd have an excuse to stomp around the house later and bellow them at people. "Well man? Where've been all day?"

Kingsley paused, hands in pockets to prevent thrashed knuckles and began desperately searching for an excuse. It would be silly to admit the truth but sillier to pretend he'd been ignoring a summons. His hand fell upon the nails in his pocket. "Collecting, sir!" He said, presenting a single nail, its head painted red.

"Coll--" The Master stopped midword and seized the nail. "Where did you find it?"
"Near the Upper Walks. I knew you've been looking for an opportunity and I happened to be in the area, sir." Here he paused, looking for a plausible lie.
"Placing an order for Mme Lie. You know how she doesn't trust the post office, sir, so she sent me to do it." He smiled comfortably at the lie. Rooster Veldt refused to speak to his neighbors but somewhere in his brain a rumpled and grouchy gentleman occasionally shook free his bonds and managed to persuade him to behave chivalrously.

"Magnificent..." He murmured, and his frown relaxed into a serene smile. "Why was I up here again?" Kingsley opened his mouth to respond but there was no time; the mouth snapped back into a rugged grimace and Kingsley nearly choked as he tried to avoid interrupting what was to come next.

"Pack your things, we've been contracted."
Kingsley leveraged the word against his internal dictionary. The deadpan humor that comes naturally to hired men muscled its way onto his tongue. "Contracted what, sir? Are we off to quarantine again?"
Veldt never accused his servants of having a sense of humor. "No, we've been contracted. Some blasted idiot in dungarees found a ruin in the Eastern Spineback, and now all the jackals are eager to lay claim. The University is hiring me out to the Fraternity of Sawbones so I can verify their findings and legitimize their claim." He scowled. "They say it shouldn't take more than a month, but it's a three days ride just to get there."

Kingsley frowned. The continent was sparingly settled, home to just over a two hundred thousand citizens of the empire. More than twelve thousand souls populated the land west of Kinsbourne, between the two major port cities and the extremely amenable countryside nearby. Kinsbourne itself was the largest population center east of the coast and marked the edge of polite civilization. Villages reached deeper into the interior, it was true, and trappers and Society archeologists ranged further than that, but three days? That had to be three hundred miles depending on the quality of the roads. Something else was bothering him, though.

Kingsley carefully adjusted his position at the base of the vast, horizontal flagpole. Once he was comfortable arranged, he leaned back against the thick beam that raised Kinsbourne's Upper Walks high above the arterial bustle of the streets below. The sun was warm and bright, a perfect sort of day to shirk his duties in the perfumed ivy. With practiced casualness, Kingsley slipped his hand into the deep pocket of his jacket, reaching for a borrowed pair of opera glasses so he could observe the city below.

Oh damn.

He dug deeper in the pocket. Nothing. The other pocket reluctantly coughed up its contents: a dull nail, three coins, and a doomsayer's pamphlet, but remained stubbornly tightlipped on the location of the glasses. Quickly Kingsley stripped open the buttons of his jacket and sent questing hand along the lining. Each of the numerous pouches that hung from his belt was investigated, and although they represented a veritable alphabet of odds and ends, the familiar bronze tubes remained shyly hidden.

Finally Kingsley stood up, furious for losing the prized lenses. So furious he'd forgotten he was precariously balanced quite far from the nearest comfortable landing, and as soon as this rather important fact slipped his mind it became untrue. He snatched wildly at the beam as the flagpole slid sidewise and managed in a terrifyingly long second to steady himself between flexible mast and stubborn column. There was a tap, tap, tap on his chest as the opera glasses swung gently on the leather lanyard.

Sheepishly, Kingsley recovered his seat and began, for seemingly the hundredth time, to trace the familiar shapes of Kinsbourne's Lower Walks. He smiled comfortably as he slipped mentally along a path across the rooftops to the open, conspicuously isolated window that represented his tiny loft above his master's flat. Then his eyes drifted lazily away, over the back fence, across the lush campus of the University, to his favorite vendor's food cart. Out of the University gates, his eyes hopped onto an awning and he slid his gaze gently across a complicated path hidden behind the vast tableau. He traced it with his fingers, remembering where a flat roof joined a sloped one, which houses had little ledges that could grant him roof access, and hopefully where he'd left the neighbor's ladder. Finally his gaze arrived at the Lower Walks Promenade, just below him, with the office of Kinsbourne's resident spirit in the center. A crowd had gathered around it, and were watching with considerably more interest than the little building deserved. After a moment's deliberation, Kingsley saw the cause for the commotion.

As if on cue, the North Carillon's dirge began to toll, sulking across the Lower Walk. It tarried in doorways and and alleys, as though it fancied stopping off for a smoke, then slunk lazily to the next street, and on down. Kingsley had always felt that for a dirge, it sounded rather exasperated with the whole experience. Somewhere nearby an accordionist had an unfortunate idea and added a deep asthmatic wheeze to the far off crescendo of bells. Kingsley's eyes were fixed on the little office, though. Suddenly, the doors burst open and a mass of black-draped cloth slumped out. A Funeral March had begun.

Slowly, the cloth arranged itself, two massive hands settling onto the ground, it's ponderous and hooded head hanging over the assembled and stock-still crowd. It was the Mourning Hunchback, the traditional funerary representation of the God of Life, Eb. The hood was decorated with a pair of bronze eyes, and the whole affair sloped into a massive trailing cloak. Bundled to the cloak were a pair of coffins. The Hunchback gestured, and the crowd stiffly formed ranks. Then, slowly, the Hunchback covered his bronze eyes in his massive hands, and delivered huge sobs. It then led the shambling progression out of the Promenade and into the street.

Kingsley watched in fascination as Eb undulated with compassionate sobs, beat the ground with his fists, and took a step forward. Underneath the tarp, Kingsley watched dozens of feet move together in unison. The sobbing was appropriate, most people reasoned. Eb was the God of life; it was fair that he'd be upset. You make something up special and see how happy you are when it goes and breaks, that was the Kinsbournian reasoning for it. Practically speaking, however, the marquee-sized puppet and his theatrical sobs were to disguise the vastly important trade secrets that made the entire spectacle possible.

Behind the sobbing god, the Honored dead followed in gauzy silence. All expired citizens of Kinsbourne (perhaps all people in the world) could look forward to the same slow walk when they'd reached the end of their lives. The Last Walk was an old ritual, practically more important than the burial. Everyone needed to get up and have the last walk before they laid down and let the earth swallow them up, or they would get restless and come back as disembodied spirits. Without muscles to wear out, they'd never tire and thus could never rest in peace. It made perfect sense to Kingsley. The Funeral March served the same purpose as the Last Walk, but it had additional ritual importance because the Honored Dead were replacing the old ones, to defend the city from any ravening ghouls whose funerals hadn't included a properly-performed walk.

Walking in distinguished lines behind the shuffling dead were the mourning families, gussied up in fancy traditional outfits, of which there was a multitude. Kinsbourne was the deepest interior city on the continent and attracted explorers and settlers from all over the Empire. Kingsley smiled a little through his glasses as he watched a man in a dazzling jacket and embarrassing scarves exchange furious glances with a woman in a staid, colorless frock and capotain. Clearly one or the other had committed some grave sartorial sin and was not fit to have family amongst the Honored. As turmeric glares accumulated, the fueding pair began to draw attention. Smoothly, a member of the Fellowship of Coroners slipped to the elbow of each disputant, and whispered sternly, then melted back into the final column of the March.

The administrators of the funeral always walked at the back of the Funeral Marches, vulturishly wheeling through the mourners ahead, ensuring that the March was executed perfectly and no outrages were committed to or by the people or the deceased in the procession. Different thanatological societies held their own Funeral Marches, and of course they were highly competitive affairs. Most societies staked their reputations on the somber opulence of their marches to attract businesses, and an embarrassing one could lead to disaster. The Freeman's Court of Gravediggers had accidentally set fire to their Mourning Hunchback three years before, and the fire had sent the Dead scattering across Kinsbourne. A month later, they had dissolved.

So the Fellowship of Coroners were dressed in their ritual costumes so they would be instantly recognized, and fiercely policed their events. Kingsley leaned toward the end of the pole, trying to catch a glimpse of the Fellowship as the parade passed on a cross street. There they were, in their ornate parade costumes; wide-brimmed hats and high-collared jackets with ornate cravats and outsize rubber gloves. In the distance, the Carillon's dirge swelled, snagged on a morning zephyr. The Hunchback cowered against the surge of wind, the dead stood stiffly amongst their fluttering raiments. Hats leaped out of the crowd and off the Coroners and tumbled away down the street. One of the junior members scurried after her senior's hat, and as she snatched it out from under Kingsley's curious glass her own hat came loose and soared up, over the Kinsbourne.

Her head jerked to watch it go, and as she followed it her brow furrowed for a moment. She was looking directly at him. Suddenly, there was a hand on his shoulder. Kingsley immediately skidded to the end of the flagpole, arms grasped tight round as he searched for the mortician's punishing... oh. Smiling dumbly from the creeping ivy, a sloth slowly waved its claw again, snagged it on a run of ivy, and vanished back into the leaves. Kingsley's heart thudded in his chest, and he crawled once again to the base of the flag pole. Slowly, he raised the glasses back to his eyes, and frowned. Through the lenses, the left half the world fragmented into a shattered kaleidoscope. Then, without warning, the brace snapped and hewatched the left lens tumble into space, off a roof, and struck passing shopkeep in the face.

Without waiting, he slipped backwards after the sloth.

The Camp part 2

As the trucks came to a stop, Kingsley watched the Kark climb off the back before slinking himself out from underneath the canvas and around to the coach. He tugged the door open, and pulled down the ladder tucked inside. Slowly, a man with a thick moustache poked his head out of the coach. He tossed Kingsley a large bag then leaped from the cab, landing with a crooked wince, then straightening up, fists on his hips.

He peered around for a few moments, hands raised to his eyes as though shielding them from the sun. "This camp doesn't look like much, Kingsley. I expected there to be, I don't know, fewer trees. More people. More equipment! I didn't know I was being hired to some..." He trailed off into gestures and meaningful eyebrow spasms, then finally settled on glaring down at a small field surrounded by trees and inhabited by a single tent, a herd of alpacas, and a sleepy-looking sheperd dressed in a chullo and woolen cloak.

Kingsley nodded in what he imagined to be a stoic fashion as he struggled to heft the bag onto his frail shoulder. The truck pulled away and he followed it for a moment with his gaze, still struggling with the rucksack.

Tents came into view past the departing truck. Then shanties with multicolored standards. Then, rising out of the side of the mountain a huge and decrepit mansion loomed, posed like a roosting vulture above what Kingsley slowly began to recognize as the camp of his employ. Linen-wrapped coolies hustled away from parked caravan trucks laden with supplies. Smartly dressed academics crowded with roughshod laborers to collect their supplies, dismantling crates here, piling sm